Daniel Kindlon

Assessing exposure to violence in urban youth.

This study reports on the development of a structured interview, My Exposure to Violence (My ETV), that was designed to assess child and youth exposure to violence. Eighty participants between the ages of 9 and 24 were assessed. Data from My ETV were fit to a Rasch model for rating scales, a technique that generates interval level measures and allows the characterization of both chronic and acute exposure. Results indicated that the fit statistics for six scales, covering both lifetime and past year victimization, witnessing of violence, and total exposure, were all good. These scales were found to have high internal consistency (r = .68 to .93) and test-retest reliability (r = .75 to .94). Evidence of construct validity was provided by the item analysis, which revealed a theoretically sensible ordering of item extremity, and also by analysis of bivariate associations. As expected, younger subjects generally reported less exposure to violence than did older subjects, males reported more exposure than did females, African-American subjects reported higher levels of exposure than did White subjects, violent offenders reported more exposure than did non-offenders, and those living in high crime areas reported more exposure than did those residing in low crime areas. Future areas of investigation and the potential contribution to studies of antisocial behavior and post-traumatic stress disorder are discussed.

Father involvement and cognitive/behavioral outcomes of preterm infants

OBJECTIVE To assess the independent effect of father involvement on intellectual and behavioral outcome of 985 low birth weight preterm infants followed longitudinally from birth to age 3 years as part of the Infant Health and Development Program. METHOD The sample for this study is drawn from eight urban sites, composed largely of ethnically diverse and relatively disadvantaged families. On the basis of a combined score for fathers stable presence in the home and amount of play with the infant, we defined extreme groups of high-involvement fathers (33%, n = 305) and low-involvement fathers (16%, n = 148), with the remainder as a middle group (51%). RESULTS Most fathers played a meaningful role as play partner with their high-risk infants. Approximately 75% of fathers were reported to play with the baby every day at 12 (peak), 24, and 36 months. Fathers who were black, younger, had teenage mothers as companions, or were from low-income families were less involved with their infants. For black fathers, low family income was significantly associated with low father involvement. Within the black ethnic subgroup only, higher father involvement was associated with improved cognitive outcome. Mean IQ for the high-involvement subgroup was 6.00 points higher than for the low-involvement group even after adjusting for family income, neonatal health, treatment group status, and paternal age. CONCLUSION Father involvement enhances cognitive outcome in black families and may have implications for intervention.

Self-reports of childhood abuse in chronically psychotic patients

A heterogeneous sample of 61 chronically psychotic patients were subgrouped according to the presence or absence of a self-reported history of childhood abuse. Patients reporting childhood abuse (n = 27) had an earlier age of onset, scored higher on the Dissociative Experiences Scale, reported more amnesia, and relapsed more frequently than patients not reporting abuse histories. Histories of childhood abuse and of past stimulant abuse predicted the score on the Dissociative Experiences Scale. A history of childhood abuse may thus contribute to the symptomatology and course of illness in some chronically psychotic patients.

Cognitive performance in childhood and early adult illness: a prospective cohort study

Study objective: To evaluate whether cognitive performance in childhood is an early determinant of adult illness. Design: Prospective cohort study covering over 30 years. Setting: Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Participants: 633 people ages 30–39 followed up since birth as part of the Providence cohort of the national collaborative perinatal project. Main results: Higher cognitive performance at age 7 was related to a significantly reduced risk of serious illness in adulthood, OR = 0.65 (95%CI: 0.47 to 0.89) for a one standard deviation (15 point) increase in IQ score. This association was independent of both parental socioeconomic status and participant’s attained level of education. Conclusions: General cognitive performance may be an important and informative early determinant of adult health. Further evaluation of this association and mechanisms linking cognitive performance and health may provide new and innovative strategies to improve disease management and reduce morbidity.

Executive and Motivational Control of Performance Task Behavior, and Autonomic Heart‐rate Regulation in Children: Physiologic Validation of Two‐factor Solution Inhibitory Control

Forty-two (42) children (mean age 10.6 years) from mainstream public (N = 22) and therapeutic schools (N = 20) completed performance tasks assessing executive and motivational influences on motor responses. In a separate protocol, children underwent physiologic challenges of paced breathing and supine to standing postural change, while heart rate was continuously monitored. Executive control was associated with vagal modulation of respiratory driven, high-frequency heart-rate variability (t = 2.20, p < .03), whereas motivational control was associated with sympathetic modulation of posturally driven, low-frequency heart-rate variability (t = -2.22, p < .03). These findings supported a two-factor solution of inhibitory control derived in a previous study.

Longitudinal Patterns of Heart Rate and Fighting Behavior in 9− through 12-Year-Old Boys

OBJECTIVE To assess the temporal stability of heart rate and to examine its relationship with fighting behavior. METHOD Heart rate at ages 9 through 12 was compared to a composite measure of fighting behavior in three cohorts of low socioeconomic status boys (n = 138; two cohorts of boys who had been rated as having disruptive behavior problems in kindergarten and one normative cohort) while controlling for body size, pubertal status, and level of family adversity. RESULTS Heart rate showed moderate stability at 1- and 2-year intervals in two of the three cohorts. The composite fighting score was related to heart rate for 11-year-old boys in the normative cohort and 12-year-old boys in one of the disruptive cohorts. CONCLUSION These data support the conclusion that there is a relationship between heart rate and aggression even within a low socioeconomic status sample.

Neuropsychological impairment in duchenne muscular dystrophy

Fourteen younger (ages 6 to 10 years) and 11 older (ages 11 to 16 years) Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) patients were tested with the WISC-R and neuropsychological language, visual-motor, and motor tasks. Older boys had an average IQ; younger boys were in the low average IQ range. Younger DMD boys were inferior to the older DMD group on tasks requiring some language and attentional-organizational skills, but not on visual-motor tasks. Older DMD boys were inferior on motor tasks. Results suggest that the reported low cognitive skills in DMD patients are not fixed or global, but reflect selective deficits in the younger boys. Possible bases for age differences in performance are discussed.

The delusion of possession in chronically psychotic patients

Sixty-one chronically psychotic outpatients were grouped according to the presence or absence of a history of delusional possession. Compared with patients without a history of delusional possession (N = 36), possessed patients (N = 25) had significantly more self-reported childhood sexual abuse, higher dissociation scores, more cannibis abuse, more experiences of thought control, and more voices heard inside their heads. These findings support the hypothesis that in some psychotic patients, possession beliefs may reflect childhood trauma and dissociation.

The boston Naming Test: norm data and cue utilization in a sample of normal 6- and 7-year-old children

Abstract The object-naming abilities of 83 normal children were examined using the Boston Naming Test developed by E. Kaplan, H. Goodglass, and S. Weintraub (1976, The Boston Naming Test (experimental edition), unpublished test, Veterans Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts). There is currently a lack of available norms for this instrument, especially for populations of younger children. Cue utilization in this sample is explored and attention is focused upon possible gender differences in naming performance and cue strategies. Seven summary scores derived from the test are presented in this report. Results indicate that the Boston Naming Test can discriminate within a normal population sample of young children and provides a relatively normal distribution for six of seven derived scores. Boys were found to have a significantly greater number of items correctly named but no gender differences in cue utilization were evident. A major proportion of the children in this sample of 6- and 7-year-olds used phonological cues almost exclusively, rather than semantic cues also provided. Cue use was not related to age or spontaneously given responses, and none of the children were found to be highly proficient at using both types of cues.

An application of the pictorial scale of perceived competence and acceptance within an epidemiological survey.

The Perceived Competence and Acceptance Scale for Younger Children (PCS) was examined in the course of an epidemiological survey of psychological disorders in children. Eighty-three children, aged 6 and 7 years, were administered several measures including the WISC-R, the WRAT, the Lie Scale for Children, and the PCS. Teachers provided ratings from a parallel version of the PCS and reported on the behavioral and social development of each child through the Child Behavior Checklist. Investigation of the psychometric characteristics of the PCS substantially replicates findings reported by its developers. The size and direction of correlations among the cognitive competence subscale of the PCS, achievement measures, and the Lie Scale indicate that children tend to more accurately report about this domain than others included in the PCS. Children who reported atypically high or low PCS levels were not found to differ from the remainder of the sample on two clinical indices. Children who tended to exaggerate PCS levels, as compared to teacher ratings, had significantly more behavior problems in school and were seen by two observers as more apt to be currently maladjusted.